Temperament influences on parenting and child psychopathology: Socio-economic disadvantage as moderator

Despite calls for research on how the socio-economic environment may be related to temperament we still do not know enough about the relationship between temperament and socio-economic disadvantage (SED). A particularly underresearched question in temperament research is how SED may moderate the temperament-parenting and the temperament-child psychopathology links. The paper argues that, to develop theory, future temperament studies should seek to explore how the timing, specificity or accumulation, level and duration and change of SED may be related not only to temperament but also to links between temperament and parenting and between temperament and child psychopathology

Fathers’ parenting, adverse life events, and adolescents’ emotional and eating disorder symptoms: the role of emotion regulation

Purpose: To investigate the role of emotion regulation in the relation between fathers’ parenting (specifically warmth, behavioral control and psychological control) and adolescents’ emotional and eating disorder symptoms, after adjustment for controls. Methods: A total of 203 11-18 year-old students from a school in a socio-economically disadvantaged area in North-East London completed questionnaires assessing emotional symptoms (measured with the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire’s (SDQ) Emotional Symptoms Scale), eating disorder symptoms (measured with the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26)), difficulties in emotion regulation (measured with the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS)), and fathers’ overprotection and warmth, measured with the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI), as well as behavioral and psychological control. The confounding variables considered were number of proximal (i.e., during the last year) adverse life events experienced, gender, age, and socio-economic status (eligibility for free school meals). Results: Adolescents’ difficulties in emotion regulation mediated the link between fathers’ psychological control and adolescents’ emotional symptoms, but not the link between fathers’ parenting and adolescents’ eating disorder symptoms, which appeared to be more directly linked to fathers’ psychological control and number of proximal adverse life events experienced. Proximal adverse life events experienced were also strongly associated with difficulties in emotion regulation. Conclusions: The study findings have implications for intervention programs which may prove more fruitful in addressing adolescent emotional problems by targeting underlying emotion regulation abilities, and in addressing adolescent eating disorder symptoms by protecting adolescents with a recent experience of multiple adverse life events. Parenting programs also stand to benefit from the evidence presented in this study that paternal psychological control may have uniquely harmful consequences for adolescent development through the hampering or atrophying of emotion regulation abilities and the encouragement of eating disorders

Contextual risk and child psychopathology

In developmental psychopathology it almost goes without saying that contextual risk factors do not occur in isolation and that it is the combination of various risk factors that portends numerous negative child outcomes. Despite this, the body of literature that examines the relation between multiple risk exposure and child psychopathology using a cumulative risk approach is still relatively small. Even when studies use a cumulative risk approach they rarely test properly whether the relation between cumulative risk and child psychopathology is linear or nonlinear, with consequences for both theory development and intervention design: if cumulative risk impacts problem behavior in a positively accelerated exponential manner, for instance, it means that exposure to multiple risk is especially difficult to manage as problem behavior accelerates at a critical level of risk. Furthermore, few studies have actually examined factors that protect from negative outcomes in those exposed to cumulative risk and even fewer have explored cumulative protection in relation to cumulative risk. On the other hand, there is the view that a cumulative risk approach at least implicitly assumes that risk factors are, in essence, interchangeable. According to this view, the importance of testing for specificity should not be underestimated. Finally, the renewed interest in the role of neighborhood risk in child development has initiated a lively debate as to whether contextual risk should be operationalized at the family or the area level. In this letter I discuss these issues, and offer some suggestions as to how future research can address them

On Tree Pattern Matching by Pushdown Automata

Tree pattern matching is an important operation in Computer Science on which a number of tasks such as mechanical theorem proving, term-rewriting, symbolic computation and non-procedural programming languages are based on. Work has begun on a systematic approach to the construction of tree pattern matchers by deterministic pushdown automata which read subject trees in prefix notation. The method is analogous to the construction of string pattern matchers: for given patterns, a non-deterministic pushdown automaton is created and then it is determinised. In this first paper, we present the proposed non-deterministic pushdown automaton which will serve as a basis for the determinisation process, and prove its correctness.

Environmental Adversity and Children's Early Trajectories of Problem Behavior: The Role of Harsh Parental Discipline

This study was performed to examine the role of harsh parental discipline in mediating and moderating the effects of environmental adversity (family socioeconomic disadvantage and adverse life events) on emotional and behavioral problems across early-to-middle childhood. The sample included 16,916 children (48% female; 24% non-White) from the U.K.’s Millennium Cohort Study. We analyzed trajectories of conduct, hyperactivity, and emotional problems, measured at ages 3, 5, and 7 years, using growth curve models. Harsh parental discipline was measured at these ages with parent-reported items on the frequency of using the physical and verbal discipline tactics of smacking, shouting at, and “telling off” the child. As expected, family socioeconomic disadvantage and adverse life events were significantly associated with emotional and behavioral problems. Harsh parental discipline was related to children’s trajectories of problems, and it moderated, but did not explain, the effect of environmental risk on these trajectories. High-risk children experiencing harsh parental discipline had the highest levels of conduct problems and hyperactivity across the study period. In addition, harsh parental discipline predicted an increase in emotional symptoms over time in high-risk children, unseen in their counterparts experiencing low levels of harsh parental discipline. However, children in low-risk families were also negatively affected by harsh parental discipline concurrently and over time. In conclusion, harsh parental discipline predicted emotional and behavioral problems in high- and low-risk children and moderated the effects of family poverty and adversity on these problems

Maternal depressive symptoms in childhood and risky behaviours in early adolescence

Longitudinal patterns of maternal depressive symptoms have yet to be linked to risky behaviours, such as substance use or violence, in early adolescence, when such behaviours may be particularly detrimental. This study was carried out to do this. Using data from the UK's Millennium Cohort Study, it modelled the effect of trajectories of maternal depressive symptoms at child ages 3, 5, 7 and 11 years on antisocial behaviour and delinquency at age 11 years (N = 12,494). It also explored their role in predicting moral judgement and attitudes to alcohol at age 11, important predictors of delinquent or antisocial behaviour and alcohol use, respectively. Latent class analysis showed four longitudinal types of maternal depressive symptoms (chronically high, consistently low, moderate-accelerating and moderate-decelerating). Maternal symptom typology predicted antisocial behaviour in males and attitudes to alcohol in females, even after adjusting for youth's age and pubertal status and after correcting for confounding. Specifically, compared to males growing up with never-depressed mothers, those exposed to chronically high or accelerating maternal depressive symptoms were more likely to report engaging in loud and rowdy behaviour, alcohol use and bullying. Females exposed to chronically high maternal depressive symptoms were more likely than those growing up with never-depressed mothers to support the view that alcohol use is harmless. While causal conclusions cannot be drawn, these findings suggest that preventing or treating maternal depressive symptoms in childhood may be a useful approach to reducing future externalising and health-risk behaviours in offspring

Urban biodiversity and adolescent mental health and well-being

Biodiversity may play a role in the mental health and well-being of people living in urban areas, but there is limited research on this. We investigated the association between proximity to Sites of Importance for Nature Conservation (SINCs) and mental health and well-being in 10- to 15-year-old adolescents living in London. SINCs are a key component of London's biodiversity and designated for their importance for the local habitat. We hypothesised that close proximity to a SINC (i.e., living within 1000 m from a SINC) would be a proxy for good access to it, which, in turn, would be associated with lower levels of mental health problems, and higher levels of self-esteem and happiness. In linear regression models, adjusted for individual and neighbourhood confounders, we did not find evidence to support our hypothesis. We discuss possible explanations for our null findings (e.g., definitions of biodiversity and access, and low statistical power) and highlight that, from our findings, we cannot infer that there is no association and that further research is needed

Adverse Life Events and Emotional and Behavioural Problems in Adolescence: The Role of Coping and Emotion Regulation

We tested whether emotion regulation (cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression) and coping (distraction, avoidance, support seeking and active coping) mediate or moderate the association between change in life stress (change in number of adverse life events) and change in adolescent problem behaviour. We used prospective and retrospective longitudinal data from a community sample. We measured change in problem behaviour as emotional and behavioural problems at Time 2 controlling for emotional and behavioural problems at Time 1, a year earlier. We measured change in life stress as life stress between Times 1 and 2, controlling for total previous life stress (before Time 1). Neither coping nor emotion regulation mediated the association between change in life stress and change in problem behaviour. Avoidance and expressive suppression were related to an increase in problem behaviour. Only cognitive reappraisal moderated the effect of increase in life stress on worsening of problem behaviour, suggesting that, as expected, cognitive reappraisal was a protective factor. In adolescents who reported they habitually reappraise, the association between change in life stress and change in emotional and behavioural problems was non-significant. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Prosocial behavior and childhood trajectories of internalizing and externalizing problems: The role of neighborhood and school contexts

This study investigated the role of the interaction between prosocial behavior and contextual (school and neighborhood) risk in children's trajectories of externalizing and internalizing problems at ages 3, 5, and 7. The sample was 9,850 Millennium Cohort Study families who lived in England when the cohort children were aged 3. Neighborhood context was captured by the proportion of subsidized (social rented) housing in the neighborhood and school context by school-level achievement. Even after adjustment for child- and family-level covariates, prosocial behavior was related both to lower levels of problem behavior at school entry and to its trajectory before and after. Neighborhood social housing was related to the trajectory of problem behavior, and school-level achievement to lower levels of problem behavior at school entry. The negative association between prosocial and problem behavior was stronger for children attending low-performing schools or living in disadvantaged neighborhoods. The adverse "effect" of low prosocial behavior, associated with low empathy and guilt and with constricted emotionality, on internalizing and externalizing problems appears to be exacerbated in high-risk contexts

Spatial working memory in young adolescents with different childhood trajectories of internalizing, conduct and hyperactivity/inattention problems

BACKGROUND: In children, internalizing and externalizing problems impact on learning. However, there is limited research on the specific impact of such problems on spatial working memory (SWM), strongly related to cognitive ability and children’s learning. AIMS: We explored distinct trajectories of internalizing problems and externalizing problems (conduct problems and hyperactivity/inattention) in a large general-population sample of children followed from age 3 to age 11 years. We then assessed their role in SWM performance at age 11 years. SAMPLE: Data were drawn from the UK’s Millennium Cohort Study. Our analytic sample was children with data on SWM at age 11 years (N = 12,589). METHODS: There were two stages of data analysis. Trajectory group membership was firstly estimated by group-based trajectory modelling for internalizing problems, conduct problems, and hyperactivity/inattention at ages 3–11 years. Multiple regression then assessed the relationship between SWM at age 11 years and trajectory group membership after accounting for confounders. RESULTS: Trajectories of internalizing, conduct, and hyperactivity/inattention symptoms across ages 3 to 11 years were related to SWM at age 11 years, even after controlling for confounding variables. For each of the three symptom domains, poor SWM was most consistently found in children with chronically high levels of symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: In general, atypical patterns of internalizing problems, conduct problems, and hyperactivity/inattention in childhood were related to poorer SWM in early adolescence